"It’s a deeply strange artifact: an A4-sized, full color glossy affair, abundantly illustrated with captioned photographs, screen shots, and lavish illustrations of exploding space ships and lunar landscapes. It boasts a perfunctory introduction by Steven Spielberg ('read this book and learn from young Martin’s horrific odyssey round the world’s arcades before you too become a video-junkie'), complete with full-page portrait of the Hollywood Boy Wonder leaning awkwardly against an arcade machine like some sort of geeky, high-waisted Fonz. We’re not even into the text proper, and already its cup runneth over with 100-proof WTF." —Mark O'Connell examines Invasion of the Space Invaders: An Addict’s Guide to Battle Tactics, Big [...]

Martin Amis, whose impending arrival in Brooklyn will change the face of Cobble Hill forever, wrote a long thing about his friend Christopher Hitchens in this past Sunday's Observer. Hitchens has a piece on Philip Larkin—godfather to Amis' brother—in the current Atlantic. Wheels within wheels.

Christopher Hitchens, along with Robert Hughes and Spy magazine's Michèle Bennett, first started me imagining that I would like someday to be a journalist and critic. These jaundiced observers of the follies of the late 1980s and early 1990s had in common an elegant style of attack, and a positive relish in the peppering, roasting, carving and dishing up of sacred cows. Hughes, by far the most scholarly of the three, went on to produce magnificent books and documentaries (and to survive the terrible injuries he sustained in a super-hairy car crash in 1999); Bennett's true identity has never been revealed, but I hope he or she is thriving, and [...]

Hey, you guys, anyone know where the hip stuff in Brooklyn goes down? You know, stuff with some edge, with that authentic Kings County feel to it. Like, I hear there's a flea market? And all the bars serve bacon cocktails? Something something pickling? Where's all that action at? Oh, no, it's not for me: It's Marty Amis wants to know.

Here's Martin Amis on Kingsley Amis' use of the English language. If you've never read The King's English, I highly recommend it; whether or not you concur with its precepts, you will certainly find plenty of things to enjoy. (For example.)

Martin Amis' continuing transformation into Kingsley Amis is a remarkable thing to follow.